


Mirror

by RednReady



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 19:45:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RednReady/pseuds/RednReady
Summary: A look into early season six Liz brain. Not Red-friendly.





	Mirror

Some days were better than others.

He had always been uncannily good at reading her. Acting like everything was normal was probably her biggest challenge yet. But seven years of living and working with fakes and manipulators had taught her well.

When alone, she felt sick. And empty. And hurt. His care for her seemed so real. How could it not be?

It was an all too familiar question.

Liz sat at her desk at the post office finishing up paperwork from their latest case. An office she hadn't used for awhile, but had now taken to spending long hours in. She found it almost a retreat. A little room that was only her own. A room where she didn't have to pretend. A room away from everything that didn't make sense anymore.

At least here she fit in with her co-workers, little crime-fighting worker bees who only had blacklisters to worry about.

She envied them. Envied their simple lives. Envied their ignorance.

Her emotions were a whirlwind. Part of her was relieved to finally know the truth. She felt more settled in the depths of her spirit than she had in a long while. She knew who her parents were. She knew who she was. But the rest...vacillated between hatred and pain. Resolve. Even a little fear.

She had no reason to believe he would harm her, but she couldn't be sure. Not when so many others lay dead, casualties to maintaining his facade.

But she was fairly certain he wanted her alive. For some reason.

Jennifer was proving to be an able ally. Liz would do whatever it took to shield her role in it all. She wouldn't let...whoever he was, take her sister away too.

Jennifer had next to nothing from her previous life. It would have been too dangerous. But there was one picture she had secretly tucked away when the Marshals came. She hadn't understood at that time what had happened. Only that her daddy was missing and she wanted to take him with her.

'I thought about burning it' she'd said, showing it to Liz. 'I hated him so much when I realized he abandoned us. To be a criminal. A traitor.' She shook her head. 'But something always stopped me. I don't know what. Maybe I wanted to remember him as he was.'

Liz's eyes had welled up at the picture of a young Raymond Reddington. He looked to be in his twenties. Dressed in jeans and a simple white t-shirt, posing for the camera with a fish he had caught. Wind-swept blonde hair and a grin. She could see a slight resemblance to the man she now knew. A father she thought maybe she had found again. That maybe she hadn't killed.

But she had. And her mother had been so brokenhearted, she'd followed him into death. And an imposter was walking around, like some kind of sick mockery of the whole thing.

'Can I make a copy?'

'Of course. He was your dad too.'

Liz snapped the case file closed and dropped her head into her hands. What would Jennifer say if she knew the whole story? That her KGB mother had seduced her father away from his family, and that his love child had killed him? To add insult to injury, that love child had come back years later and killed Jennifer's surrogate father.

It was so absurd, Liz almost burst out laughing.

_She'll hate me. I'm the reason for all of it._

But it couldn't be avoided. Not if they were going to find out who the man who took their father's identity really was. They would need to put all the cards on the table, explore every angle. She would tell her... tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.

No more lies.

Mr. Kaplan had been right. It was too late for her. But maybe she could make it better for her own daughter, for Agnes.

Agnes, whose young life had already been endangered so many times by secrets. Whose father had been killed over one. Who had almost lost her mother too. Who probably would have been raised by the very imposter Liz now fought.

Well, enough. No more. Liz would do whatever had to be done, kill whoever had to be killed. As long as, at the end, Agnes could live with truth and without fear.

_This tale of deceit and corruption....it ends with me. I will not let it bleed into another generation._

Her head was a confused mix of thoughts and emotions. She could hardly keep it all straight. But she would do this. She would find out who he was and what he wanted. And she would put an end to it all.

Elizabeth had killed her father once. If she had to, she would kill him again.

 


End file.
